A Sicilian town is shocked by a mafia threat that includes a horse head and a pregnant cow

() – The authorities are investigating the discovery in a Sicilian town of a decapitated horse head and a chopped up cow with its dead calf bloodied on top as a mafia message. The dead animals were discovered on the property of a construction contractor in the town of Altofonte, near Palermo, police told .

The macabre scene was reminiscent of the 1972 film “The Godfather,” where a character wakes up next to the decapitated head of a horse in his bed.

The contractor, who is not being named for protection during the ongoing investigation, told police he had not received threats before discovering the dead cattle, which were being kept on an adjacent property.

Construction and the garbage industry remain the two most prominent business sectors linked to the mafia in Sicily, according to a recent report by the Anti-Mafia Directorate.

The contractor often carried out construction work for the local municipality, which has worked hard to deny mafia-related companies the chance to win tenders, but had told police he had not been approached by any group demanding money. or favors.

A police spokesperson told that the incident is being treated as a mafia intimidation tactic.

The horrific incident may be related to the recent release of 20 mafia members from local prisons, whose sentences had expired, and who may be seeking revenge, according to the head of the Anti-Mafia Directorate, Maurizio de Lucia.

De Lucía warned last September that the freed criminals would almost certainly seek revenge.

Altofonte Mayor Angela De Lucia said she was “petrified” when she heard the news. “I cannot understand such barbarity,” he told local media.

“This act seems to take us back to the Middle Ages.”

The use of dead animals, more commonly dogs than horses, has a history on the southern Italian island.

It’s a tactic that has been used by the notorious Sicilian Cosa Nostra crime syndicate for decades. Several similar incidents involving the decapitated heads of animals have been reported by local businessmen in Sicily: in 2023, a decapitated pig’s head was found hanging in the local police station, while a local contractor found the decapitated head of one of his goats in the door to your garden.

Organized crime in Sicily has been a problem since the 19th century, when Cosa Nostra was first identified. Violence peaked in 1992 when two anti-mafia judges, Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, were killed in roadside explosions.

More recently, Cosa Nostra, working in conjunction with the Calabrian syndicate ‘Ndrangheta, has shifted away from violence and focused more on white-collar crimes, infiltrating local governments and industries such as construction and healthcare.

But extortion and the demand for protection money or “pizzo” remains a common practice for these groups.

In a 2023 criminal case, 31 people were convicted of helping local gangsters by lying about paying protection money to the group, which served to protect them, according to the judge’s sentencing document.

In 2023, Matteo Messina Denaro, a Sicilian Cosa Nostra mafia boss who had been on the run for 30 years, was captured while seeking cancer treatment in Palermo, underscoring the level of complicity that continues to protect and enable criminal enterprises.